US:US president George Bush will today visit areas hit by tornadoes that have killed at least 20 people in several American states, including eight students at an Alabama high school.
The White House said Mr Bush would make two stops, but his destinations were still being decided yesterday.
The burst of tornadoes was part of a line of thunderstorms and snowstorms that stretched from Minnesota to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Authorities blamed the tornadoes for the deaths of a seven-year-old girl in Missouri, 10 people in Alabama and nine in Georgia, while twisters also damaged homes in Kansas.
In Alabama, eight students were killed when a tornado struck Enterprise high school, blowing out the walls and collapsing part of the roof, Enterprise mayor Kenneth Boswell said yesterday. They were all in one wing of the school which took a direct hit, he said.
"It was in a split second that we sat down and started to cover ourselves before the storm hit," said Kira Simpson (17), who lost four friends to the storm.
As the storm system swept into Georgia, another tornado apparently touched down near the Sumter regional hospital in Americus, 188km (117 miles) south of Atlanta, killing at least two people and injuring an undetermined number of others, according to Buzz Weiss of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. At least 42 patients were evacuated to Phoebe Putney memorial hospital in Albany, spokeswoman Jackie Ryan said.
Six more people were killed in the town of Newton, Georgia, including a child, and several homes were destroyed.
Early yesterday, the storm was pelting the Carolinas with heavy rain and causing power outages and street flooding, while a tornado warning was posted in late morning for the North Carolina coast. The US National Weather Service received 31 reports of tornadoes on Thursday from Missouri, Illinois, Alabama, Georgia and Florida, plus a report yesterday of a waterspout near Cartaret, North Carolina.
In South Carolina, the coast guard prepared to search for six people on a small boat who sent a distress call during the storm.
At Enterprise high school, officials had been watching the storm on Thursday as it swept through southern Missouri and headed into Alabama. The students were preparing to leave for the day when the sirens started up and the lights went out.
Teacher Grannison Wagstaff said: "I turned around and I could actually see the tornado coming toward me."
As the students scrambled for shelter, a section of roof and a wall near 17-year-old Erin Garcia collapsed on her classmates.
"People didn't know where to go. They were trying to lead us out of the building. I kept seeing people with blood on their faces."
Outside, debris from the school was strewn around the neighbourhood, where cars were flipped or tossed atop each other.
At least one other person was killed in Enterprise, a city of about 23,000 people some 120 km (75 miles) south of Montgomery. Another died across the state in rural Millers Ferry, where mobile homes were flipped and trees toppled, officials said.
In Sumter County, Georgia, the main hospital received storm damage and there were two fatalities and an undetermined number of injuries, Mr Weiss said. Officials were not sure whether the injured and the dead were inside the hospital, he said.
Further north, a tornado killed a man in a mobile home. - (AP)
